Hello,

I need to manage a remote server that I'm setting up.
It's based on Ubuntu Server 12.04 (from the minimal edition) and I need to access it over SSH, Webmin (and some server monitor/hardware failure alerting system).

Issue here is, it's going to be placed on a local LAN and obviously have an IP like 192.168.x.xxx and will be behind a hardware firewall (pretty simple - just something like a Dlink router).
I am not on the same LAN and am in a totally different location, so would obviously be accessing it over the internet.

Accessing the servers local IP number from my location will obviously not get me into it. How else can I have access to manage it?

just set up port forwarding on whatever border device you have, firewall, adsl router etc. For small devices, portforward.com is really useful.

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Thanks Chris.

When you're referring to "border device", would it be the 1st device that is connecting the whole network to the internet or (maybe) the router that the server (I wish to access) is connected to?
I've attached a diagram and what I wish to access is the EMR Server.

Knowing how ISP's in our area are, they usually configure their router with the public IP address, so all that users know is 192.168.x.xxx and they give no access to their routers.

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whatever it is that is reachable on the internet in the first instance. idealy a site to site VPN would be preferable, but for just ssh that works.

Thanks for this.
I am still a bit confused - I've setup port forwarding and opened port 22 for 192.160.0.107 (which is the ubuntu server), but how would I, from over the internet connect into this?

you'd hit port 22 on the public IP.

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ssh to the public IP. The router will see you coming in on port 22, it will check its port forwarding rules, and will forward the connection to whatever local IP you told it to send port 22 to.

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AAHHH! I see.
However, there's still a hindrance here - the ISP provides one public IP and there's hundreds of their (different) customers connected to that. Also, the public IP keeps changing.
I tried logging in from cygwin withand I getI go the "current" publicip from whatismyip.com
Over the local LAN I can ssh into the server with cygwin

hundreds of different customers?? You've not added any port forwarding at all to that device, have you?

You're scaring me!!
I've already added port 22 for the server - what should I do, immediately remove this?

I mean, you sound like you're not actually configuring this ISP device, that that's their device, not yours. If you can't access the internet connected device (or find someone who can) then you can't allow traffic inbound through it to a specific internal node. The other option is a solution that reaches out from the server via a broker service. If you have a third server that both machines can ssh to then you can have a reverse tunnel going back to the 1st server to get in that way.

this is true.

This is what I feared.

Would really appreciate if you could highlight on this pls.

But in the meantime I'm removing the port forwarding I setup earlier.

This looks useful for what I described - http://wiki.fabelier.org/index.php?t..._SSH_Tunneling

This is describing an intermediary sytem, but note that this could potentially be your own home system, collapsing the roles of the "middle" and "outside" pcs. And here you may need to port forward into YOUR internal system, or rather the address your laptop usually has as and when it is connected to your home wifi etc.

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Thanks for this, Chris.

I'm giving it a go and will post the outcome/issues.

This would be a problem...but it all depends on how they set things up. I have experience with several ISPs, and they usually fall into one of two categories:

1) ISP provides a dumb modem which simply translates the incoming connection to an ethernet connection. It provides no routing whatsoever, doesn't even have its own IP. The public IP is given to the device attached to the modem, usually your own router.

2) ISP provides a modem/router combination device, which steals the external IP and only provides LAN IPs to the connected devices, but they give you the login information for the modem/router allowing you to set up things like NAT, port forwarding, firewall rules, subnet, DHCP range, etc.

I prefer #1, but in either case you can do what you're asking, the difference is going to be which device you log into to make the port forwarding rule. From the sound of it, your ISP has given you the device in #2 (modem/router hybrid), but no login information for it. This would be unacceptable to me, and I would be calling to complain immediately. No customizable subnet, or DHCP range...inexcusable in my opinion. Depending on the type of connection, you may be able to purchase your own dumb modem, give them the MAC address, and set that up in place of the modem/router hybrid they provide (pushing you into category #1 above). Either way, first thing I would do is get on the phone with the ISP.

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